“The bureaucratic equivalent of saying that the dog ate your homework.”
Edward Markey of the US House Select Committee on Global Warming criticises the Bush administration for rejecting a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Air Act to limit CO2 emissions. To make matters worse, the next day the EPA backtracked, saying the law was “ill-suited” to regulate climate change (CNN, 12 July)
“When I was growing up, they would ask things like: how do you fit in a test tube?”
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The world’s first “test-tube baby”, Louise Brown, celebrated her 30th birthday last week (BBC News, 14 July)
“You might as well be tagging a unicorn for the amount of information we know about these fellas.”
Jon Houghton from Queen’s University in Belfast discusses plans to tag jellyfish off the Welsh and Irish coasts to study their mysterious lives (BBC News, 11 July)
“They are not good at diagnosis and they operate on things they don’t understand.”
British GPs are no experts at treating patients with skin cancer, according to David Shuttleworth of the British Association of Dermatologists. He says GPs are being discouraged from referring patients to specialists to save money (The Times, London, 14 July)
“It’s not just the crazy cat lady. Marketers and all of this consumer advertising have made it okay to spend tons of money on your pet.”
David Lummis, who analyses the pet industry for market research firm Packaged Facts, on a trend for owners to give their pets “lifestyle” drugs, to help them deal with separation anxiety, say (The New York Times Magazine, 13 July)
